1. Relevant Field
The field relates generally to wireless position location. In particular, the field relates to a dynamic reporting scheme for position location reporting.
2. Relevant Background
It is not uncommon for wireless devices to include position location capabilities. The wireless device can implement the capabilities to autonomously locate its geographic position. Autonomous position location architecture is typically referred to as mobile-based position location. Alternatively, or additionally, the wireless device can implement the capability to determine its geographic position in conjunction with one or more elements in a wireless network with which the wireless device is in communication. Such augmented position location architecture is typically referred to as mobile-assisted position location.
Regardless of the implementation architecture, the prevalence of position location capable wireless devices permits support for a wide range of Location Based Services (LBS). Location Based Services refers to an application or service that utilizes the position of the wireless device. Examples of Location Based Services include, but are not limited to, location tracking, destination mapping, navigation, traffic avoidance, or some other location aware service. Other examples of Location Based Services include position sensitive advertising.
A Location Based Service may be hosted by the wireless device or a remote entity, and may utilize information including position information that is exchanged between the wireless device and a remote entity. Exchanging information in support of the Location Based Service consumes a portion of the capacity of the wireless channel over which the information is transmitted. The amount of capacity consumed by supporting the Location Based Service is not an issue where the wireless channel is virtually unlimited. However, wireless communication systems are typically capacity constrained and do not offer virtually unlimited capacity to support information transfer. Moreover, the proliferation of position capable wireless devices and the ability of each wireless device to support a vast array of Location Based Services highlights a need to manage information exchange in support of location based services.
The amount of information exchanged in support of Location Based Services needs to balance information bandwidth against consumption of wireless resources. Exchanging detailed information may increase the accuracy and effectiveness of particular Location Based Services at a cost of system resources. Exchanging minimal information potentially sacrifices relevance of the Location Based Services but conserves system resources. Managing information exchange in Location Based Services involves analysis of the information exchange-resource consumption tradeoff.